June 26 - Vernon, BC

Happy birthday, Lyle!

 I am truly blessed to have Lyle in my life.  He is a rock of support and encouragement.  The picture above shows Lyle waiting patiently on the benches outside the Vernon museum at the beginning of our walk there.   Without his patience and of course his driving skill, I doubt that the White Cane Connections project would be happening.

In many ways it was surprising that we were able to arrive in Vernon at all!  Highway #1 was blocked west of Revelstoke for many hours due to a mud slide.  Traffic was stopped on the other side of the pass at Golden because there was no room for any additional cars and trucks to park at Revelstoke.  When the highway finally opened, we drove through to Revelstoke and on to Sicamous.  There we were again detoured because floods had washed on Higway 97 to Vernon.  We had to proceed further west to take an alternate route south. It was a long trip but we finally got to Vernon.

At the end of our walk today, I did stop in at the Vernon Library. In spite of the library being housed in a new building, none of the computer stations had audible programs installed. Likely this was because of the licensing expense. I am writing to the Okanagan Library System to express my disappointment with this.

On the plus side, many of the intersections in Vernon have audible signals at the traffic lights. The interesting part was that at the newer lights, the push buttons were painted with a bright yellow orange colour, making them stand out from the metal gray. Good job, Vernon.